A squeak leaves her before it turns into a giggle.
A real fucking giggle.
I stare at her.
She stares back, wide-eyed and bright, both hands grabbing my shoulders on instinct.
“You asshole—”
I kiss her before she can finish it. Not rough this time.
Just hungry and a little stunned and probably too much, because everything in me is reacting to that sound she made like I found something rare and breakable in a world full of knives.
She laughs against my mouth.
I lower her enough that her boots brush the tops of the grass but I don’t let go.
“Do that again,” I mutter.
Her mouth curves. “Do what?”
“That.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Brat.
I slide one hand higher up her back, the other still locked at her waist. “The laughing.”
Her expression changes a little at that.
Softer. More careful.
Like she doesn’t know what to do with the fact that I want it.
Then her fingers brush my eyebrow ring, feather-light. “You brought me to a dandelion field.”
“Yeah.”
Her eyes search mine. “Why?”
Because I don’t know how to give you your childhood back, but I’d rip the world open trying.
Because I can’t undo what men did to you.
Because I can’t be soft the way you deserve, but I can drag softness into existence and put it at your feet if that’s what it takes.
Instead I say, “Because you like dandelions.”
Her face does that thing again.
That dangerous little openness that makes my whole body go alert because I know how badly I want to keep it there.
She exhales slowly. “Maks.”
Just my name.
Nothing after it.
